


you really think I'm pretty?

by charybdis



Series: The neverending list of fics I want to read [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charybdis/pseuds/charybdis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that Natasha doesn’t recognize the hot spike of lust that Pepper’s expression calls up, it’s just that— well she’d thought that they were in competition with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you really think I'm pretty?

Natalie Rushman lasts for three months as Tony Stark’s PA, and she is in control for every moment of it — except for that one hour where he decides to have relations with a racecar and a super villain; but that’s only to be expected, after all, it’s true, what they say about mastery and madness. And anyway, this story is not about Natalie Rushman.

The point is, three months (give or take an hour, no matter how disastrous) of total control means that Nat is inducted into the exclusive society of Stark Wranglers, consisting of people who have, at some point managed to handle Tony Stark without actually causing him bodily harm. The only other people with this distinction who do not have superpowers are Pepper and Rhodey. (Coulson tazed him once, and Fury has superpowers — it’s always safer to assume this is true)

***

She’s been sleeping with Jim for a while before he asks her. She can’t really blame him, considering Tony’s record and the way Natalie Rushman had been — a skin, but a well-honed one, who had worn her shoes an inch too high and her skirts three inches too short. She almost says _of course_ , except that he deserves the truth, and that isn’t quite it.

They’re in his bed, and she was thinking about a shower before he asked, a shower and then her own bed, but with Jim’s arms around her waist, and his face pressed against her hair, the shower seemed unreasonably far away, and her bed unappealingly cold.

Still, she gives his question due thought. After all, this is Jim Rhodes who just laughed when she chucked him on the chin and called him "Jimmy” on national television, back when they’d done that talk show in an effort to show the human side of SHIELD.

“Natalie Rushman slept with him. Several times,” is what she finally says, because that’s true — more true than what she was going to say at first — and she feels him freeze, suddenly, and she turns in his arms, so she can watch his face, waits to see what will happen. If he’s going to throw her out of bed, better that she can see it coming. His eyes look right through her, and a faint frown creeps across his face, and she’s a little disappointed, but she can’t say she’s exactly surprised.

Then he says, “Nat,” so concerned that it takes a second try, like he thinks there’s something that she isn’t telling him, and she has a momentary dilemma, unable to decide if she wants to punch him in the face, or choke him for being so stupid, but then he says, “But Nat — _you’ve_ slept with _me_ , right?”

He gets it. She smiles, and it’s true, too, when she slips back into the curve of his body, figuring it’s a better place to be than her own bed, or even the shower, and she says, “Every time, Jim,” and she means it.

***

At first, she doesn’t understand Pepper, and she’s pretty sure that the feeling is mutual.

Then one day, after a nasty day of apprehending supervillains, Natasha comes home to the mansion to a clip of a senator calling Black Widow the s-word — not _spy_ — and Virginia Potts with her laptop open on Natasha’s kitchen table, snarling at someone on the phone.

It’s not that Natasha doesn’t recognize the hot spike of lust that Pepper’s expression calls up, it’s just that— well she’d thought that they were in competition with each other — and they should be, if the looks that Jim and Pepper sometimes exchange is any indication — but Pepper smiles at her after she disconnects the call, says, “Oh, hi. I’m sorry — I’d have called, but I thought I’d have this cleared up before you came back.” She’s not even looking at Natasha anymore, focused on her laptop, typing fast — the familiar, executive cadence of dozens of very formal emails being sent to powerful people.

Natasha just stares at her, though she does locate the remote and switch the television off.

Pepper actually blushes, but she doesn’t look up and she doesn’t stop typing.

“Who let you in?” Natasha asks, because that’s honestly the only question among the myriad in her mind that she can make enough sense of to verbalize.

Then Pepper does look up, away from her email, and the expression that she gives Natasha is so much more eloquent than _bitch, please_. It’s more like _excuse you, but the AI that not only controls all your electronic locks but also monitors all activity in this place happens to_ like _me, inasmuch as an AI can be said to like anyone;_ try _not to ask stupid questions, thank you_ — and if Natasha hadn’t recognized her own lust before, it’s unavoidable now. She is thinking about stepping around the back of Pepper’s chair and leaning down to watch her hands as she types, as fast as she talks, maybe, and as competent. She’s thinking about the warmth of Pepper’s back underneath her crisp suit, where Natasha could press her breasts, just lightly, just for a moment. She’s thinking about the curve of Pepper’s ear, the fading blush, and the steel hidden under all that, sharp when it matters, but only then.

“Jim’s not going to be happy,” is what she says, and she doesn’t move, and this time, Pepper laughs. She sends off her email, and closes her laptop, and shifts in her chair so that she’s facing Natasha head-on, and she tells her, “In some ways, Specialist Romanova, you are terribly blind; I didn’t do it for Jim.”

Natasha spends some quality time, after that, thinking a lot more about Pepper’s hands and her ears and her competence, among other things.


End file.
